How Good Are Experienced Presidents?

Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom had spent 20 years in Congress plus
had considerable other relevant experience and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois
state legislature and 2 years in Congress. Which one do you think would make a better President?
If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked
James Buchanan
over
Abraham Lincoln.
Your pick disagrees
with that of most historians, who see Lincoln as the greatest President ever and Buchanan as the second
worst ever, better only than Warren "Teapot Dome" Harding. Both served in what was probably the most
difficult period in American history, where slavery and secession tore the nation asunder.

Before becoming President, Buchanan had served 6 years in the Pennsylvania state legislature,
10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, 4 years as ambassador to Russia, 10 years in
the Senate, 4 years as Secretary of State, and 4 years as Ambassador to England. Talk about
experience, Buchanan did just about everything except serve on the Supreme Court, a job he was
offered by President Polk and refused. Yet by any measure, he wasn't up to the job as President.
In contrast, Abraham Lincoln served 8 years in the Illinois legislature and one term in the
U.S. House (1847-1849), a decade before becoming President. The rest of the time he was a
lawyer in private practice, a bit thin one might say.

Of course, these are only two data points. What about all the other Presidents?
Weren't the experienced ones the better Presidents? Fortunately, there have been a number
of surveys of presidential greatness, some by professional historians and some by the
general public. Many of these are given in the Wikipedia page on
Historical rankings of U.S. Presidents.
The amount of experience each President had before taking office is well known since the lives
of all Presidents have been extremely well documented. Thus the basic data--years of experience and ranking--are available making a
statistical analysis of experience vs. greatness possible.

David A. Levine of New York has collected the data from Wikipedia and done some analysis of it.
Let's start with a table of the Presidents listed in order of their consensus rank in the 12 surveys given in the above
Wikipedia page.

President

Rank

Age

VP

Gov

Senate

House

State Leg

General

Cabinet

Sum

Party

Abraham Lincoln

1

52

2

8

10

R

Franklin D. Roosevelt

2

51

4

2

6

D

George Washington

3

57

16

8.5

24.5

F

Thomas Jefferson

4

57

4

2

3

4.25

13.25

DR

Theodore Roosevelt

5

42

0.5

2

2

4.5

R

Woodrow Wilson

6

56

2

2

D

Harry S. Truman

7

60

0.25

10

10.25

D

Andrew Jackson

8

61

0.75

3

1.75

7

12.5

D

Dwight D. Eisenhower

9

62

11

11

R

James K. Polk

10

49

2

14

16

D

John Adams

11

61

8

8

F

John F. Kennedy

12

43

8

6

14

D

James Madison

13

57

8

4

8

20

DR

Lyndon B. Johnson

14

55

3

12

12

27

D

James Monroe

15

58

3.25

1

6

10.25

DR

Grover Cleveland

16

55

2

2

D

Ronald Reagan

17

69

8

8

R

William McKinley

18

54

4

12

16

R

John Quincy Adams

19

57

5.25

8

13.25

DR

William Howard Taft

20

51

2.5

4.5

7

R

Bill Clinton

21

46

12

12

D

George W. Bush

22

54

6

6

R

Martin Van Buren

23

54

4

0.25

8

8

2

22.25

D

Rutherford B. Hayes

24

54

5.25

2.5

2.25

10

R

George H. W. Bush

25

64

8

4

12

R

Chester A. Arthur

26

51

0.5

1

1.5

R

Herbert Hoover

27

54

7.5

7.5

R

Gerald R. Ford

28.5

61

0.75

25

25.75

R

Jimmy Carter

28.5

52

4

4

8

D

Benjamin Harrison

30

55

6

6

R

Calvin Coolidge

31

51

2.5

2

6

10.5

R

Richard Nixon

32

56

8

2

4

14

R

James Garfield

33

49

18

2

3

23

R

Zachary Taylor

34

64

10

10

W

John Tyler

35

51

0.08

1.25

6

4.25

11.58

W

Millard Fillmore

36

60

1.25

8

2

11.25

W

Ulysses S. Grant

37

46

7

7

R

William H. Harrison

38

68

3.25

2.5

2

7.75

W

Andrew Johnson

39

56

0.1

4

4.5

4

12.6

War Union

Franklin Pierce

40

48

5

4

2

11

D

James Buchanan

41

65

10.25

10

6

4

30.25

D

Warren G. Harding

42

55

6.25

4

10.25

R

As practically everyone knows, the current President is often called Bush 43 (to distinguish him from his father, Bush 41). But there
have only been 42 Presidents. Stephen Cleveland (commonly known as Grover) won the popular vote three times, in 1884, 1888, and 1892, but
lost the electoral college to Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Having actually won two consecutive elections, he ran again
(with Adlai E. Stevenson, grandfather of the 1952 and 1956 Democratic candidate, as his running mate)
in 1892 and won, making him the 22nd President and also the 24th President.

In the table above, the top quartile (actually 11) are colored deep green, 2nd quartile (actually 10) is colored light green,
the 3rd quartile (actually 11) is colored light red, and the bottom quartile (actually 10) is colored deep red.
Recent Presidents have not been included in all the historical surveys, so their rankings should be taken with a grain
(or better yet, a metric ton) of sodium chloride. Bush 43, for example, was rated only twice and one of the ratings
was by the Wall St. Journal.
Rankings of recent Presidents will no doubt change in future years when the wisdom of
their decisions (or lack thereof) becomes more apparent.

All experience is not the same. How do you compare being governor of a small state with being governor of a big state?
Is being Vice President worth a pitcher of warm beer or any other fluid? Is being a state senator more or less relevant to
being president than being Secretary of Commerce? Impossible to say for sure, so I have justed added up the total number
of years of experience as a proxy for experience. If you want to weight the columns differently, the data are available
in both
Excel format and
.csv format so you can slice and dice them as you wish.
Before becoming a data analyst though, you should a first read
the Notes on presidential experience
document David wrote.

Now for the test. In the table below, the Presidents are sorted on experience. The most experienced
President was James Buchanan, with Lyndon Johnson and Jerry Ford getting the silver and bronze medals, respectively.
Chester A. Arthur had a mere 1.5 years experience before he was elevated to the Presidency upon the asassination of President Garfield.
If experience and greatness correlate, one would expect the top half of the table (the most experienced Presidents) to be mostly green (good)
and the bottom half (inexperienced) to be mostly red (bad). If there is no correlation, the red and green should be random.
Indeed, the latter seems to be the case. The top half in terms of experience (above the gray bar) has 11 bad Presidents and 10 good ones,
essentially no correlation between greatness and experience. If you don't like this result and want to try for a better one,
just get the spreadsheet and start weighting the columns. Undoubtedly you will be able to get a different result if you try hard enough.
But the point remains, the Presidents with a lot of experience have not been more outstanding than those with little experience.

President

Rank

Age

VP

Gov

Senate

House

State Leg

General

Cabinet

Sum

Party

James Buchanan

41

65

10.25

10

6

4

30.25

D

Lyndon B. Johnson

14

55

3

12

12

27

D

Gerald R. Ford

28.5

61

0.75

25

25.75

R

George Washington

3

57

16

8.5

24.5

F

James Garfield

33

49

18

2

3

23

R

Martin Van Buren

23

54

4

0.25

8

8

2

22.25

D

James Madison

13

57

8

4

8

20

DR

James K. Polk

10

49

2

14

16

D

William McKinley

18

54

4

12

16

R

John F. Kennedy

12

43

8

6

14

D

Richard Nixon

32

56

8

2

4

14

R

Thomas Jefferson

4

57

4

2

3

4.25

13.25

DR

John Quincy Adams

19

57

5.25

8

13.25

DR

Andrew Johnson

39

56

0.1

4

4.5

4

12.6

War Union

Andrew Jackson

8

61

0.75

3

1.75

7

12.5

D

Bill Clinton

21

46

12

12

D

George H. W. Bush

25

64

8

4

12

R

John Tyler

35

51

0.08

1.25

6

4.25

11.58

W

Millard Fillmore

36

60

1.25

8

2

11.25

W

Dwight D. Eisenhower

9

62

11

11

R

Franklin Pierce

40

48

5

4

2

11

D

Calvin Coolidge

31

51

2.5

2

6

10.5

R

Harry S. Truman

7

60

0.25

10

10.25

D

James Monroe

15

58

3.25

1

6

10.25

DR

Warren G. Harding

42

55

6.25

4

10.25

R

Abraham Lincoln

1

52

2

8

10

R

Rutherford B. Hayes

24

54

5.25

2.5

2.25

10

R

Zachary Taylor

34

64

10

10

W

John Adams

11

61

8

8

F

Ronald Reagan

17

69

8

8

R

Jimmy Carter

28.5

52

4

4

8

D

William H. Harrison

38

68

3.25

2.5

2

7.75

W

Herbert Hoover

27

54

7.5

7.5

R

William Howard Taft

20

51

2.5

4.5

7

R

Ulysses S. Grant

37

46

7

7

R

Franklin D. Roosevelt

2

51

4

2

6

D

George W. Bush

22

54

6

6

R

Benjamin Harrison

30

55

6

6

R

Theodore Roosevelt

5

42

0.5

2

2

4.5

R

Woodrow Wilson

6

56

2

2

D

Grover Cleveland

16

55

2

2

D

Chester A. Arthur

26

51

0.5

1

1.5

R

Here is a scatterplot of rank vs. experience. If more experience makes you a better President, the
dots, each of which is one President, should fall somewhere along the blue theoretical curve--more experience
gives you a higher rank (1 being the highest rank). The two Bushes and Clinton are not shown since it is
much too early to draw historical judgments on them. One needs a very vivid imagination to perceive the data
points falling along the blue line. There does not appear to be any relation between experience and greatness.

Here is the same scatterplot, but now with the Presidents labeled.
The Presidents (way) under the line might be regarded as overperformers. They didn't have much
experience going into office, but did pretty well once there. The ones (way) above the line
had lots of experience but were not good Presidents.